Tuesday, October 1, 2013

More

In principio erat verbum

That first word; can
we imagine it being spoken as something more than infantile balbation,
something more like a concept than a name? Names are spoken, but we
invented them. We have names because we have want and that want came
before the name. Without it there were no names nor those to name them.
In any sort of beginning there was a word and we made that word because
we want, and what we want is more. In the beginning there was desire
and want became word. I want, therefore I am aware. I am aware,
therefore I am. In the beginning there was the word and the word was more.

Do we imagine some Lord
uttering a command to the emptiness, or do we wonder why something so
primordial and infinite embedded in a finite chaos of dirt and water and
wind and nothingness would have words? Was there a beginning without a
prior want? In whom dwelt the want that became God? Would words arise
without anyone to listen? But in any kind of beginning -- of man, of
God -- any dawn of any ego, that decision to change what had always been
and what is now -- the want that made that decision became the word and the word was more. Let there be more than there is.

A
lord of dust and gas and particles and heat; it means little to be lord
of nothing. A God who never did anything and never wanted to: a Lord
without volition is no more than dead matter and empty space. A lord, to
be a lord needs more and so want itself makes the Lord and so he makes
the world, orders it, speaks the word to himself and creates his
creation so that what he says can be a word. From more, existence proceeds. God said more and there was more.

A lord: meaning us; us being separate from the nothing, separate from oblivion and the chaos and the word that separates is more.
The word that defines consciousness is more; we wake, we perceive we
want and in that beginning the word becomes flesh, the flesh becomes
word: let there be more.

Do we ever progress far beyond
the primordial word? We strive we desire we achieve, we preserve, we
pile thing upon thing, experience upon experience -- we live and we want
more. We want more life and we want more of desire itself because
desire is life and life must want more or it dies.

We
struggle against entropy and we want more and in the face of ravenous
oblivion, in the end, we want more and we invent agencies from which to
beg for more as possibility fades. We want new realities where we can
have more and there always is more to have -- and we imagine them, we
fight to imagine them and we fight to preserve the imagining; the
imagining of more and more forever when forever, nonetheless, is only
nothing more.

In the beginning we say . . . but that was too long ago to matter. In our beginning was desire and if more comes after us, there will be no words at all.

I recall a short animated film called More that won critical acclaim decades ago at the Zagreb Animation Festival, long before Yugoslavia succumbed to the Post-Tito Apocalypse.

Synopsis: A chorus of human voices droning “more, more, more” repeatedly as more people, more things, and more trash piled up precariously atop an ever more beleaguered planet Earth. No longer available, the only other short film that comes to mind is this by Saul Bass.

I'm trying to question what life would be without the urge behind the word 'more'. It lies behind consciousness itself and without that motivation there would be no life at all. It denies any deity that has not the need to grow, to change, to acquire. Can we consider a god that needs something to be omnipotent, unlimited, even complete? Without motivation, we only have gas and plasma, waves and particles with no one to notice.

What word can we associate with the idea of a motivated creation but "more?" What can we associate with self sustaining reproduction of molecular structures than "more?"

There is much to be said about consciousness of self and awareness of our surroundings. Behavioral scientists may hypothesize that consciousness is an evolutionary adaptation that enhances survival; but this says nothing about the word ‘more.’ Perhaps we should look inside our internal chemistry and physiology, especially the endorphins and other neurotransmitters that drive pleasure, addictions, and the desire to want ‘more;’ but this says nothing about poetry or philosophical insight. So I leave you with these thoughts – at least for today.

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